Whales Everywhere!

Humpback Whale Sounding on the Way to Pribolof Canyon

We departed Dutch Harbor at 4pm Alaska Time today. It’s after 11pm now, still plenty of daylight, as we head north to Pribolof Canyon for our first dive in the morning. I’ll be one of the pilots, so I hope to get some sleep soon. As we headed north away from the Aleutians, there was a steady stream of announcements from the bridge over the intercom: “Whales, port side. Whales, starboard side. Whales, off the bow.” Humpback whales in groups of ten. We also saw fin whales.

Captain Peter Wilcox Taking the Esperanza Out from Dutch Harbor

We have flat seas, mild temperatures in the fifties, and we’re all very excited to finally be at sea following many weeks of preparation.

I’ve spent much of the day preparing a boatload (get it?) of hard disks for the fire hose of data to be stored on them coming from the high definition video cameras on each sub. Now off to get some sleep…zzzzzzz